


Untimely Crisis of Affection

by TheWitchBoy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Also applicable:, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, For the most part, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, IN the heat of the moment, Internal crisis, Is That A Thing? "Stoncy"?, Jonathan is Confused but Along for the Ride, Lots of Crisis, M/M, Mostly Kisses and Fluff, Multi, Nancy Ships It, Nancy is Levelheaded, OT3, Pre-OT3, Profanity seems to be taken for granted around here, STRANGER THINGS SEASON ONE SPOILERS, Sexuality Crisis, Steve is not, accidental cheating (sort of), but i'm going to reiterate my warning. I don't usually swear this much in my writing, external crisis, profanity warning, stoncy, takes place between demogorgon fight and hopper/joyce entering the upside down byers house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWitchBoy/pseuds/TheWitchBoy
Summary: Okay, yes, Steve was impulsive. Yes, he sometimes did things without thinking. But, bad things don't always come from impulsive actions, right?





	Untimely Crisis of Affection

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my spur-of-the-moment contribution to the Stranger Things fandom. I was rewatching Stranger Things, Season One, and when I got to the demogorgon fight, I had this fleeting thought, which is what produced the below. Initially, this was under 500 words, but I figured "hey, I can do better than this," so I rewrote it all, culminating in the 1.7k you now see.

There was a whoop of victory as emotion overtook the three of them. A high that even the disappeared beast couldn’t quite nip in the bud. The floor was smouldering, the bear trap was gross as all fuck, and the extinguisher sat innocently to the side, having done its job. Another good sign was the steady lights.

The Creature – capital effing C – wasn’t anywhere to be found, and that would probably be concerning in a minute or two, after they’d all come down from their victorious high. But, at that moment, it didn’t matter. They’d won. They’d lived!

They’d defeated the supernatural beast, the…. the humanoid carnivorous flower thing. They’d won. They’d won!

Steve reached out, mind fuddled to shit – partially on adrenaline, partially on gas fumes, and partially on the sheer force of denial that he was employing about just about everything from the last five minutes – and pulled the nearest of the party in for a quick and messy kiss, which surprised Steve himself.

Okay, yes, Steve was impulsive. Yes, he sometimes did things without thinking.

But there was something to be said for the moments leading up to a kiss, usually. There was the connection, before two people even touched. The eyes, the flickering gazes that indicated interest without words, the hands, the first touch… it was nigh sacred. And then the first touch of lips meeting lips, usually chaste and gentle.

Making out could be any manner of energy and enthusiasm, but the initial kiss tended to follow a pattern. All at once, that pattern Steve had adhered to since he’d started kissing girls back in middle school or junior high, was thrown to the wind.

It should probably be said, for Steve’s benefit, that he expected the only willing comer to be Nancy. Jonathan was stubborn as a mule, for one thing, and had good reason to have something against Steve. Good reason that pointed to earlier in the day, when Steve’s friends had defaced the theatre, Steve had insulted Jonathan and his family, and then the fist fight.

Yeah, Jonathan could put up a fight.

So, it was pretty logical that, if Steve caught Nancy, he’d get his impromptu kiss. If he caught Jonathan, there wouldn’t be a kiss. More likely a swat, some nervous laughter, and maybe some stupid grins. Adrenaline was euphoric and unpredictable that way, right? Maybe he’d even catch the tail end of his desire to have that victory kiss and reel in Nancy, after all.

So yeah, Steve reached out to reel in one of their euphoric, victorious party members, drew them in, and kissed them hard and without the finesse he’d usually try for. He reeled them in almost blindly – blinded first by the bright flickering of the lights, then by the semi-darkness that the Creature had left in its wake – and kissed them on the mouth.

There was a brief splutter, and their noses bumped into each other before their mouths slotted together, but the ends were achieved with a satisfying slide of mouth against mouth, breaths intermingling, both panting from adrenaline before even meeting for the affair of mouths, teeth, and satisfyingly curious tongue.

Steve was caught up in the moment, and he felt the moment stretch and lengthen, even as his brain spoke to him with a lack of coherency Steve blamed on everything, including the intimacy.

But really.

Nancy wasn’t that solid, tall, or broad. Her lips weren’t that chapped and didn’t fumble for what to do. Her tongue was more adept and less shy, once they reached a point in an embrace where tongues would be introduced. Her hands didn’t have so much of a problem finding a place to rest. Her hands weren’t that large and solid, either, pressing warmth against Steve’s ribs on one side and gripping tightly to his shirt on the other.

Nancy’s hair was also up. And, if it _were_ down, it was longer, softer, more attentively cared for. But this hair was fine, Steve had his hand tangled in the hair at the nape of his partner’s neck as he bit lightly at a kiss-swollen lower lip, which earned a groan that went down Steve’s spine.

It was so good.

But no. It wasn’t Nancy.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and Steve could remember – almost in retrospect – the startled noise bordering on a squeak that followed Steve’s impulsive grab. On the other side, he could (again, in hindsight) here the questioning tone. If he’d grabbed the expected partner, one of those noises probably wouldn’t have resulted.

Nancy didn’t squeak. Jonathan knew that Nancy and Steve were an item (possible emphasis on ‘were’).

And if it weren’t Nancy. Well. It had to be someone else. Someone with shorter, rougher hair; chapped lips; a taller, broader frame; larger hands; and a possibility of less knowledge (or practice of application) in romantic endeavours.

That meant Jonathan. (Unless Steve was sucking face with the Creature, and that just wasn’t a pretty mental image, at all.)

Jonathan. Fucking. Byers.

He was the willing comer and he kissed back with confused zeal, accepting intrusions, nips, a tug at his hair, and any number of liberties you just didn’t take with someone you weren’t romantically involved with or had the explicit consent of. He was the absolutely willing participant that rewarded every messy motion and every tug and every bite with little noises that ran a Grand Prix up and down Steve’s spine and drove Steve forward, bolder.

Jonathan fucking Byers was the willing comer that accepted the adrenaline-fueled kiss and _fucking kissed back_ before apparent realization pulled the two boys apart, mutually. There was a moment of buzzing and pleasant stings from where teeth had raked and nipped, and there was a moment of just staring at each other, both disheveled obscenely with kiss-bruised mouths, aroused panting, and frankly stricken expressions.

They both turned to Nancy, frozen in the next moment.

It wasn’t like the moment, or moments, previous where adrenaline and pleasure spurred them forward and culminated in heady little noises that weren’t so much restrained as they were muffled. This moment was full of horror and rising senses of understanding and impending doom.

And, and, and.

Steve slowly uncurled his fingers from Jonathan’s hair. Jonathan’s eyelids fluttered, probably, and Steve let himself think it was a trick of the light, or lack thereof. But Jonathan’s head also rolled back, almost following Steve’s receding touch.

In turn, Jonathan removed his hand from Steve’s ribs and awkwardly loosened the grip he had on Steve’s shirt.

Nancy stood there, weapon dangled loosely in the hand crossed over her midsection, and her other hand propped at the elbow on her wrist, so that her fingers could graze her lips and jaw bone. She had her cheeks blown out thoughtfully.

Or… she looked a bit flushed. And there had been exertion, true, but this seemed different, somehow. She looked between Steve and Jonathan with a weird expression twisting her mouth up on one side. She didn’t look angry or disappointed, which was a pair of small mercies, in and of itself.

Steve’s mind reeled, though.

It had been a fantastic kiss. An arousingly fantastic kiss, in a depressingly literate sense of the word, and part of Steve wanted to give it another go, to see if a second kiss achieved the same spark and drive and… energy. If kissing Jonathan was as much like kissing the sun as it was the first go-round.

On the other hand, he’d just kissed a boy. Not just any boy, either! Stone-cold sober Steve Harrington had swapped fucking spit with Jonathan fucking Byers. On the same day that Steve and Jonathan had been at each other’s throats, fists flying after insults. God.

God! What a mess.

Steve glanced sideways at Jonathan, whose eyes were still on Nancy, and then turned back to the girl in question. His _girlfriend_. His girlfriend who he’d just went ahead and kissed someone else in front of. His girlfriend who’d just seen him shove his tongue down a guy’s throat. His beautiful, amazing, perfect girlfriend who’d already watched him mess up plenty, earlier that day, who he had just _cheated on_ – with her absolutely and unchangeably present – with the guy she’d watched him get into a fistfight with, earlier!

It was layer upon layer upon fucking layer of “this can’t be happening.”

But she wasn’t angry. She was…

Steve didn’t know what she was. Thoughtful? Calculating? _Intrigued_?

“So,” Nancy said.

The first light flickered on, behind Steve and Jonathan. Clearly, this – whatever it was – had to wait. Nancy sighed, even as fear skyrocketed inside her, rebuilding her reserves of adrenaline and making her feel wound up and bone weary, all at once. She raised her weapon, which alerted Jonathan and Steve to the possibility of a replay that no one wanted.

Steve and Jonathan turned, going instinctively to cover each other’s blind spots, and trained their gazes on the issue at hand. Personal crises could wait until the coast was clear.

Steve licked his lips, almost chasing the taste of _Jonathan Byers_ with the tip of his tongue. He tried to keep his attention on the possible danger at hand, but his skin still prickled electrically, and Jonathan was close enough yet that Steve was noticing all sorts of weird things, like his scent. And then there was Nancy’s more floral-vanilla, but still anxiously sweaty, scent on his other side, and that was confusing.

As always, Nancy’s scent (even with the underlying scent of sweat from both anxiety and exertion) was a comfort that sent a little thrill through him, even a flutter that holed up like a pleasant secret pinned behind his ribs. But Jonathan’s scent was a nervous little mystery, ticking its way from under Steve’s skin and begging to be noticed, poked, prodded… played with. But, most of all, it was a mystery begging to be noticed.

It was a mess that one really didn’t want on their mind when a cross-dimensional, carnivorous plant-beast was possibly about to make its return.

Steve’s gaze flickered between Nancy and Jonathan one more time, before focusing on the lights travelling down the narrow hall, headed for the pair of bedrooms.

Again. Personal crises could wait until the coast was clear.

Probably.

**Author's Note:**

> So, the fleeting thought. "What if Steve reached out to kiss Nancy, but caught Jonathan instead." I believe I thought this at a different point in the episode, but found that it fit better if I put it where we didn't see the trio. That way, it could be canon compliant. Sort of.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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